


Despite My Attachment, My Legs Were Deemed Unfit For Utopia

by WifeWifeCity



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast), Twilight Mirage - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 09:21:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21873727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WifeWifeCity/pseuds/WifeWifeCity
Summary: A normal walk on the By-And-By by somebody who never had a choice
Kudos: 8





	Despite My Attachment, My Legs Were Deemed Unfit For Utopia

Clank. Clank. I hear the sound of metal on metal every time I take a step. My original legs have long been marked as biohazardous waste and been disposed of. After that accident long ago that disrupted the nerve connections to my legs, they gave me new ones. I never said I wanted new ones. But I needed new ones. “This isn’t the Tides of Harmony. This isn’t Thyrsus. This is the By-And-By.” And now my bottom half is metal.

When I go shopping, I take the direct route. When the elevator doors open and I rush to a shop right next to the elevator, I feel the stares of the religious. The soreness where my flesh meets the metal is too much for me to take part in their rituals, so now I must endure their stares. When I go to the doctor and complain of the soreness, I get: “Well, making perfect prostheses was handled by so-and-so Divine and now that they’re gone…”

Today is a holy day on the By-and-By. The digital architects that make everything here have helpfully provided us all with a small Anticipation just for today. It remains in the corner of my vision, telling me how to take the long paths, and therefore how to best honor Anticipation. Today I need to buy groceries. I go my usual way.

“The Divine Fleet is a utopia.” We are taught. I can be free to express myself however I wish. I can be free to love whomever I choose. But my legs… my legs are worth less than my love, I guess.

The soreness in my legs grow as I carry my groceries home. As I get closer to my door, the paths suggested by the little Anticipation in my vision grow stranger, more twisted. Anticipation seems to get more desperate for me to take a long way home. Any long way. Please.

As I reach for my door, Anticipation says “It is advised that you take a longer path today. Is this the path you really want?” I open the door, walk inside, and sit down. The ache grows more bearable as I no longer stand. Maybe in a couple of hours, the pain will be gone and I will want to stand up again.

And no, Anticipation, it isn't.


End file.
